THE END OF THE GANG OF FOUR

The last member of the political group responsible for the planning crisis of 2005-2007 lost his seat.

The introduction of large multi-member wards saw the defeat of other controversial politicians.

But the reform failed to replace the dominance of the Independent group system with a more disciplined traditional party set-up.

The Independents have taken control and there are signs that the seeds have been sown for another crisis in the years ahead…

THE GANG OF FOURThe defeat of Hefin Wyn Thomas (bottom left) and the failure of John Arthur Jones (top right) to gain a seat in the election means the end of the four-strong Radical Independent group. In the 2008 election John Rowlands (bottom right) retired and David Lewis Roberts (top left) was defeated.

WHEN THE count got under way at the Leisure Centre in Llangefni on May 3, the key question was — would the grip of the Independents on the island be broken?

The elections had been delayed for a year after the Welsh Government took control of the council in March 2011 to allow a programme of “democratic renewal” to take place.

The government hoped that the introduction of large multi-member wards would allow mainstream parties to take over from the Independents who were seen as the cause of the island’s instability.

In the Canolbarth Môn ward, which covers Llangefni, Plaid Cymru mounted a sustained campaign to take all three seats.

The strategy succeeded, taking more than half the votes.

In the process, the party’s three candidates kept out the controversial Independent, John Arthur Jones.

Jones is the disgraced former Director of Housing (1990-1998) and the leader of the Radical Independents who were the junior partners in the ruling coalition of 2005-2008.

Despite his chequered career, he came fourth with 915 votes, 11 per cent of the vote. This means that he remains a force to be reckoned with — and likely to stand for the council again in four years time.

He was standing in the new three-member Lligwy ward and could only manage 426 votes, coming 9th out of 12 candidates. His chances of making a comeback in the new order look slim.

His departure means that the last sitting member of John Arthur Jones’ four-strong Radical Independent group has disappeared.

The group was the junior partner in the administration led by veteran politician Gareth Winston Roberts, OBE between 2005 and 2008.

Roberts was the subject of the highly critical Rebecca Television article Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, OBE. He did not stand in the elections.

Also defeated was the arch-enemy of the Gareth Winston Roberts – Radical Independents axis, Barrie Durkin, who came fifth in the Lligwy ward.

His decision to live off the island probably cost him many votes.

Plaid Cymru became the largest of the mainstream political parties with 12 seats.

Labour’s campaign was less visible and the party fared badly.

It won only three seats and lost one of its key figures — sitting councillor John Chorlton, who could only manage fifth place in the three-member Ynys Gybi ward.

Chorlton had been an independent member in the past and an ally of Gareth Winston Roberts and John Arthur Jones in the 2005-2008 administration.

Overall, however, the Independents proved more than a match for the new government-imposed electoral regime.

Even though they lost their leader Bryan Owen, the group still topped the poll with 14 members.

The Independents have now struck a deal with the three Labour members to form a new administration.

♦♦♦

THE FAILURE to break the power of the Independents is a major blow to the Cardiff government’s hopes of restoring good government on the island.

The Independents, of course, are not a naturally cohesive group and have shown a tendency in the past to fragment and form new alliances as ambitious councillors jockey for supremacy.

In addition, the decision by the Executive in April to give councillors back their power to “call-in” controversial planning applications is another recipe for trouble.

The power had been removed in 2007 to bring an end to the planning crisis in which scores of applications were approved against officers’ recommendations.

What has tended to happen in the past is that slowly but surely the calling in of these planning applications — which can add between £100,000 and £150,000 to the value of a plot — become more common and more blatant.

This is what led to the crisis of 2005-2007 which itself followed an earlier scandal in the early 1990s.

The lesson of the past seems to be that, no matter how outrageous a councillor’s actions are, the chances of him being brought to book are virtually nil.

Take the case of former councillor David Lewis Roberts, the Radical Independent member who lost his seat in 2008.

Last year the council’s own Standards Committee decided he had been corrupt in his attempts to pervert the planning system in 2006-7 (see The Case of the Corrupt Councillor).

But the committee, inexplicably, decided not to call in the police to investigate.

Our attempt to persuade North Wales Police to mount a criminal investigation of David Lewis Roberts continues.

The force is sifting through documents supplied by the council and has yet to come to a decision.

With the government in Cardiff, the council, the Ombudsman — and, so far, the police — seemingly unable or unwilling to tackle the root causes of the problem, the chances are that Anglesey will, after a period of peace, soon be back in the limelight…

That article featured the 1997 report by the District Auditor which criticised John Arthur Jones — then the council’s Housing Director — for awarding a contract to a firm of private investigators in which McGregor was a partner.

At the time McGregor had just retired as the North Wales Police superintendent in charge of Anglesey.

McGregor insists that no contract to investigate housing benefit fraud was ever signed and that he was disappointed that the District Auditor had not spoken to him or his partner.

“Had he spoken to us, he might well have had a stronger case against John Arthur Jones,” he says.

JOHN ARTHUR JONESThe former housing director and councillor has always insisted he’s never done anything wrong. He says that the District Auditor’s reports which led to his sacking in the 1990s were “unfair” and “irrational”. He has branded other criticism of his actions as “false” or “misleading”.

McGregor says that in May 1997 John Arthur Jones had rung him at home and offered him a job as a Benefit Fraud investigator.

McGregor refused because he was about to set up his own firm, Môn Investigations.

He told Jones that the firm might be interested in bidding for the work if the council advertised for tenders.

“The next contact that I received from John Arthur Jones was about a month later in early July in which he said that he was keen to appoint our partnership and as Director he did not need to go to tender if the contract value was below £3000.”

“With those assurances I agreed that we would undertake some work for the Council within the delegated sum at the rate of £20.00 per hour. John Arthur Jones confirmed these arrangements in writing.”

“I was unaware that he was under investigation by the Fraud Squad otherwise I would not have touched him with a barge pole.”

McGregor says that he considers John Arthur Jones and Gareth Winston Roberts as the main architects of Anglesey’s troubles: “the ills of the Council are directly attributable to these two characters [as is] the total lack of governance within both the [pre-1996] Anglesey Borough Council and the Isle of Anglesey County Council for almost three decades.”

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COMING UP

POACHER TURNED gamekeeper Rhodri Williams is the Welsh Director of the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. In the article — A Man Of Conviction—Rebecca Television will chart the story of his rise to power and his dramatic departure from the television company he helped to found. In the television programme — Hidden Agenda— his former partner Ron Jones tells the story of the dramatic days leading up to Williams’ dismissal.

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One Response to THE END OF THE GANG OF FOUR

Whilst I find your articles in relation to Anglesey of interest and others of your articles including the “Septic Isle” foe the most and they do not surprise me at all. However as an investigative journalist I rather feel you are labouring the same point on a relatively insignificant island community and missing the bigger picture. For teh Septic Ise instead of just Angl, idealesey read the Ise of the whole of the UK for the most part. Since what is happening on Anglesey is now happing all over the UK its the same now where ever you go. The Isle of White for example is the same riddled with curruption as are the Channel Islands and numerous towns and communities across the UK. It is now pretty corrupt all round to a greater or lesser extent and getting worse. I have lived and worked in many parts of the UK and found similar experiences and found myself a target in my industry for trying to stand against this rising tide of corruption, abuse and malpractice. It cost me my job on three occasions and my professional career as a Chartered Civil Engineer and sadly also my marriage 8 years ago. So leave Anglesey and focus on the bigger picture. We now have a corrupt Government in part and also generally now a corrupt UK [police force overall and now effectively a corrupt “Police State” controlled directly by central Government with these Police Commissioners as the Corrupt American Sytsem instead of the Police being answerable to democratic elected Police committee now just one person, ideal for corrupt manipulation.

I am currently myself again it seems a target where the police are not investigation acts of fraud and burglary against me and deliberate criminal damage to my property and where my phone is tapped and admitted to be tapped by BT and my computer is hacked into, but the police will not investigate. Where I am concerned I am not receiving the correct medical advice and care when I appear to be at possible quite serious health risk where the local Hospital and care treatment is manipulated by this now totally corrupted system.